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Q&A with Director Tom Shadyac

Tom Shadyac has directed such films The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Ace Ventura, and Bruce Almighty. I sat down with Tom to talk about his battle with Post Concussion Sydrome, connectivity, and his new documentary I AM.

Can you talk about the treatment you received for Post Concussion Syndrome after your accident?

It was a complete process of discovery. I didn’t know anything about head injuries. I don’t think we have much information about it at all in our society. I learned everything on the fly. [Head injuries] are cumulative in their damage. You get a certain amount of credit in the bank and with each concussion you take out some credit. My last one was about my sixth, and that was all the credit I had. The symptoms simply don’t go away. You have sensitivity to light and sound. I could never been in this room because that light would be too bright. The heat I could feel, and even the sound of your voice. It was too much. I was like a computer that can’t handle information.

Essentially your brain is a filtration device and I lost the ability to filter information. I had to shut down my life. I had to put blackout curtains where I was living. I slept in a closet for a while to shut out all the sound. Each day I would wake up and introduce stimuli and my head would make a noise. I would lose my balance and my focus. I was kind of like a torture. After four months of it I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I’m not going to live long. If what the Western doctors are telling me was right, I will never get better and I’m not going to make it.

When you began your journey making this film, you started to get better. What was that like?

I didn’t get better at first. In facing my own death and deciding to go on this exploration, I think that was the first big step to helping me get better. It released a tension that existed in me. I believe our emotional tension can manifest itself physically. These ideas that we talk about in I AM, what’s wrong with our world and what can we do about it, were deep in my heart. I was very passionate about it. I didn’t talk much about it, but I was trying to live it as much as I could. In deciding to express it and share my journey, it released a tension that allowed me to heal. At the same time I discovered a couple of alternative therapies, hypobaric oxygen and bio-feedback. Those two things along with this expansive release helped me start to feel better.

What’s bio-feedback?

Bio-feedback is retraining your brain to literally the sound of a Pavlov ion bell. If you look at a computer screen that registers your brain, a concussed brain is out of rhythm. You try to put your brainwaves down to a certain spectrum by relaxation. When you get down in that zone you get a bell, and that’s the feedback. You get trained to do your best to let go and simplify those waves.

One of the themes I loved in I AM was how we connect as communities. My dad always told me music was a way for people to connect. How did theme of connectivity become part of your movie?

It was thanks to people like your father who may have been connecting with people even if he was unaware. There is interconnectivity that often goes missed. I had enough experience in my life to know that if someone slips on a banana peel here, they’re going to laugh about that in New Guinea. They’ll laugh about it New York City. If someone helps a person, they’re going to feel something in their hearts in New York City. They’ll feel something in New Guinea. It felt like there was this commonality amongst us. This idea of humanity is in our spirit and we all feel it. And yet the story that I kept hearing was we are all aggressive, angry, violent creatures, we’re greedy, and survival of the fittest. I saw a society that was based on that story. I was taught in school that I have to look out for number one. That was against everything that I intuitively felt. I explored that model of being number one and setting myself up and it didn’t really pay. It didn’t pay the ultimate price which was a more fulfilled life. As I shifted away from that and into more connection, that’s where I found what I would call true wealth.

It may have happened with your father through experience. As your father experienced music and seen how it brings people together from various ethnicities, backgrounds, and political believes [tapping his foot on the ground] we all tap our feet to music.

We aren’t taught to operate like that.

We aren’t taught that, but there’s no reason we can’t teach that. We know that your film can make $100 million but not be a success because it put more anger, or it put more hate, or it put more division into the world. We know your film can be seen by a few people that it affects and be a huge success because it gave them a powerful idea. There is no reason we can’t start teaching that because we’re experiencing it. We are what make up society. You are going to raise your kids a way that’s different than how society was raising you.

What are you hoping people get form I AM?

Awake. [Laughs] I hope that’s it’s an alarm clock to at least start asking some questions about some of the half truths we’ve been taught. I’m hoping they will see how powerful they are. That small shifts in their own life can make huge differences. I hope they will consider to stop looking at things to change on the outside and start looking to change within themselves. Like Gandhi said, “My life is my message”. I hope people start to look at their lives as the most powerful, creative act they will ever offer this world.

We are taught a very linear model. Here are the steps and if you don’t make one of those steps you are going to be off the social step track and eventually die. Your society will reject you. All the true leaders have all rejected that. There are many ways to walk in the world.

When people see the movie I hope they have the wisdom to ask a question. To look at something you’re doing and say “Is this because I want to do it or because society wants me to do it”. That’s beautiful.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.